33. The Withering Years #2
Henry scanned the faces of his top three knights.
He couldn’t afford to lose even one of them and keep the borders of Mortlande stable if he were to attack the Marches.
He said nothing. But the way his jaw clenched, they all knew—he was weighing what he might lose against how much he still wanted her dead.
But in Henry’s silence, it was Father Osbert who took to him. The small private audience split to allow his passage.
“You took a vow before God,” Father Osbert said. “She has done nothing deserving of this harm. You cannot force one to pray, Lord Henry.”
Father Osbert and Henry held each other’s gaze longer than Erik expected.
“If you interfere again, priest, I’ll make sure your tenure at Thornwyck is cut short.” The loosely veiled threat of death or reassignment sliced through the air before Henry shoved Seren away.
She fell to one knee, catching herself against the wooden planks, and wiped the blood from her mouth with her sleeve.
“Commander,” Henry snarled. “You want her alive, then strike her until she either prays for my victory or tells me where her daughters are.”
Erik bowed his head, stomach churning. “As you command.”
Seren met his gaze as she stood alone.
He took ten steps and was in front of her. Though she was only thirty years old, fine lines encircled her eyes, brow, and around her lips. Henry had worn her down, and even though Henry had dulled her body, the light in her eyes, as she gazed up at him, had never dimmed.
Four years, he had not stood as close to her as he stood then. He wanted to wrap her in his arms, kill Henry, and walk away with her, but only one of those three wishes could happen, and they would all end in death for them both.
“Well, Commander?” Henry said.
The brute had taken a vow twice to the church not to punish a wife too harshly, and that was likely why he was ordering Erik to take on his burdens in a public setting with Father Osbert present.
“You do not wish to pray against your homeland or present your daughters as liabilities to the lord?” Erik asked, more so to make time to garner the strength it would take to beat her with an iron face.
“I do not,” she whispered.
“Then I am ordered to beat you until compliance, milady,” he said, slipping his glove off so the armored knuckles would not break her skin. He hoped Henry wouldn’t notice and order his gloves to remain.
“I understand,” she said, forgiveness already welling in her eyes.
He took her in: her skin, paled by being a prisoner within the keep; the dying autumn color of her irises; the single threads of raven hair peeking from beneath her veil.
He couldn’t do it—beat her. The thought of his fist ramming into her face repeatedly tore his gut from his body—so he decided he’d only hit her once and hope she went down, ending Henry’s tirade.
She closed her eyes.
He struck her.
Hard.
One blow.
No warning.
Father Osbert flinched.
His fist cracked across her face with the weight of restraint, with intention, carefully aimed to do what he needed but to inflict the least amount of damage.
Her body crumpled, folding in on itself like a felled stag. She collapsed in a heap at his feet. She lay unmoving and silent; her upper cheek revealed the fresh pooling of blood beneath the skin.
“ONE?” Henry roared. “One strike?! I said beat her!”
Erik stood above her, his expression holding everything back. Feet shuffled behind him. Geoffrey and Jovin knew what he’d done, but Henry was too angry to put the pieces together.
“I apologize, my lord,” Erik said, calm as before, as he hinged at the waist toward Henry. “I do not know my strength with women as you do. I am more familiar with hitting men as you’ve commanded me to do many times before.”
The passive insult made it through a firm facade masking any malice he held toward Lord Henry, but Henry’s lip curled, anyway.
“Get her out of my sight,” Henry snapped at Margot and Isolde.
Erik slipped his glove back on as Henry turned to Seren’s handmaidens.
Margot and Isolde rushed to Seren, trying to lift her—but she was dead weight. Her head lolled to the side, hair loose beneath her veil, trailing across the blood-dotted wooden floor.
“My lord, she is too heavy. We cannot carry her,” Margot said in a rush, with her face to the floor.
Henry’s teeth bared as he glared at Erik.
“Clean up your mess,” he spat through clenched teeth.
Erik nodded. “As you wish, my lord.”
He looked down at Seren’s body, his jaw taut.
Henry’s voice boomed to those in the great hall, “We depart within the hour. If the girls are found, kill them. They should have been drowned at birth. They are a drain on this keep.”
Erik kneeled.
There were three choices in carrying out Henry’s order to clean his mess.
One, he could drag Seren by the wrists—Henry’s preference, cruel and humiliating.
Two, he could throw her over his shoulder—the way one carried a sack of grain.
But he would not do any such thing to Seren. Only one choice remained. Let the host whisper their murmurs if they must.
He slipped one arm beneath her knees, the other behind her shoulders. His fingers brushed against her ribs, and a hush went through his blood like the vacuum of sound after a cathedral bell rang. His hands shook from the ache of reverence.
She was something sacred.
And he was the unworthy man who had struck her down.
He lifted her like a lady, his lady.
A woman worth defending.
A woman he loved.
Henry’s gaze burned into his back as he turned.
“Master de Bramber. Guard Godric,” Henry snapped. “Go with the dog. Make sure he obeys.”
Erik said nothing, and he didn’t look back.
He carried her from the great hall, her blood on his sleeve, her weight against his chest.
And for the first time in four years, he allowed himself to feel the truth of what he could never hold.